Northern Lights: Adelaide's light show

North Terrace is Adelaide's showcase of fine colonial buildings and includes the city's art gallery and state library. 

Most of the time, it leads a life of quiet sandstone dignity, except when South Australians have a festival of the arts. 

Then they romp. 

This light show - called Northern Lights - on North Terrace coincided with Adelaide's Writers' Festival in February 2010. 

Projections cast on the buildings drew attention to their design, bringing out their finest features.

Each projection lasted about three minutes, then would fade - to reveal a disappointed facade.  After a theatrical pause, a new projection would sweep across the building, and all would be well again.

Moon over Adelaide's North Terrace

The light caught the leaves out

Elder Hall: all frocked up.

Same building, new frock

....ditto..

Close up of South Australia's state floral emblem: Sturt's desert pea

Bonython Hall: one minute a vine-covered castle, then ...

...a pink palace...

...a red fort.

The moon cast a sober light on such frivolity

Will this building EVER live down its pink pillars?

Unfamiliar Customs: a light show

Unfamiliar Customs is how this light show is described.  It throws a large scale image on a traditional sandstone building called Customs House on Sydney's harbour edge.

It was part of the Vivid Festival, a light show after dark in Sydney's winter, in June 2011.

During the day, our city buildings went about their business with quiet dignity.  At night, they romped, and all without moving from the spot.

The light animations turned them into surreal cartoons of themselves, and when it was over, the light show left no trace and the buildings denied it ever happened.

All that remains of this event are the Youtube uploads: take a guided tour of the event with google, it's awesome. 

This my first Youtube upload, so be kind to me.

Bronte surfers

 

A winter's day at Bronte beach. A storm out to sea had sent power waves to the shore.

South America for beginners

A tour to South America, Panama Canal and Cuba requires three things.

1. A plane

2.  A flight crew

3.  A map:

4.  Passengers

And, having checked everything is in good working order...

Let's go!

Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Date: Monday 9 May 2011.

Time: 1410

QF 6034

Sydney/Buenos Aires

Flight time 13hrs 20 minutes.  

BUENOS AIRES...

There's 220 of us.  En masse, we are a force of nature.  A fleet of seven sightseeing buses take us on tour, and we see the streets where Buenos Aireans set up house - but not all houses are for the living.  We visit the Boca district and its vibrant colours, the sombre tombs of Recoleta Cemetery...and everywhere, there is the tango.

(Please note: I take responsibility for all photographs, spelling mistakes and opinions.)

The Buenos Aires signature dance

A professional dog walker

Christ the Redeemer is everywhere

School bus

The Boca District

The story goes that this is what you do with left over paint.

We stroll along the main street of the Boca District, La Caminto.

The Boca District is for tourists.  The slums are not...

Seen from the bus window: Mile after mile of Buenos Aires Leggoland slums. They compete for the same air space as the hi rise office towers, but look as if they might blow over with the first brisk breeze.  

People actually live here

Electricals

Recoleta Cemetery, where we visit the dead of Buenos Aires in their ornate tombs.

Mourning in concrete

Mourning in a rather nice terracotta brick

I feel these plants are not showing proper respect for the dead

Cleaning day

Lovely art deco door

Having driven by the cram of Buenos Aires' slums, I feel that the dead in Buenos Aires have a better standard of accommodation than the city's poor. 

Eva Peron's plaque

Even now, over 50 years after death, Eva's tomb is festooned with flowers

Historic building in pink - I believe Eva lived here

More electricals

Electricals and vegetation

The sun flower sign

Isn't this tops!  It opens to the sun and closes at night.

Metal stamens

Can you see the bird?  It is sitting on the 'engine' at the centre of the flower.

The flower is made from the outer metal of a Fokker Friendship. 

We cruise along canals of the Tigre Delta

Inside our river boat

The Tigre Delta is a waterway of shifting sands.  Islands are easily formed and, in an endless cycle, they are just as easily washed away. For those people who have not learned from recent history, a new island is fresh real estate.  On this pile of unstable silt, they build holidays homes.  Some are shacks, others are mansions, but all are at the mercy of wash from passing ferries (such as ours), and moods of the delta.
If they do not buttress the shores with a stout breakwater, the waterway sucks away the sand, crumbling the shore like wet cake.  The house foundations are next, followed by the house itself. 

Slow mo demolition

The corner shop

Check out the industrial strength breakwater.  This mansion is here to stay.

Such an ordinary house, such extraordinary protection!

Is it sinking?

Our room in Park Tower, Buenos Aires. 

Hotel foyer

Classy vases